To-day is Youth Sunday and an opportunity for the Church throughout the World to celebrate the enormous potential that young people bring to the Church. The problem is that, so often, we stifle that enthusiasm.

This feast of Christ the King highlights the realm of the Risen Christ. A World of truth and life, holiness and grace, justice, love and peace.

What so many young people see around them is so far from those ideals that they could lose any sense of Hope. To them, the adult world seems to thrive on anger, cynicism and injustice.

But they fight back!

Our young people have a real sense of what is right, a passion for the poor and their needs, a sense of restoring the rights of the oppressed and endangered.

It's sad that the Church doesn’t see that, adapt its liturgies to welcome them and help these young people to grow and develop. They have so much to offer.

It's sad that our communities fail to learn from them. They have so much honesty.

Our own Diocese no longer employs a full time Youth Officer. What does that say about our respect for young people!